Poll: Final Fantasy character progression systems

[2xDouble]

I'm somewhat surprised to read that. I found FFX to be really well-balanced in that regard, the progression seemed pretty natural to me without requiring much (or, really, any) grinding or farming for for key spheres until, perhaps, the very end, when the highest level spells and abilities are behind three or four level 4 locks. But, even then, the enemies you should naturally be fighting at that point (Inside Sin or The Ultima Dungeon) should provide enough of those.

I'm not saying the Sphere Grid wasn't awesome (it totally is), only that the Materia system was slightly more awesome because you can use the ability as soon as you find it.

 

[NoElixir]

I believe the Ability System was my favorite of them all. I meant to select this option, but..

However, I thought the Crystarium system tied into the plot much better than any other past fantasy title. That's honest words when you look at the Design Theory and break it apart.

 

[ZephrC]

You know what my favorite is? Final Fantasy IV's. No, that's not a typo.

I'm sorry, but all the strategy in combat comes from dealing with your characters limited abilities. Making it so everyone can do everything removes all the challenge. And all those systems either allow everyone to do everything (VII, VIII, X, and XII) or are simple, unneeded micromanagement that adds nothing to the gameplay. (IX and XIII)

If you absolutely must have customization, I think the job system works best. It allows you to do whatever you want, but doesn't allow you to have a party of people that can all simultaneously do everything at once. You still need to decide which job a character is going to be in at any given time, and thus there is still some strategy.

 

[AC Medina]

You completely left out the pre-7 games. You're pretty terrible at this. The best system is and will always be the Job system. There's a reason why Dragon Quest uses it so often, because it's effective and allows for characters to gain different skills without losing the uniqueness of each character that systems such as junction, the spheregrid and the materia system totally remove.

Like I stated in another post, I didn't want to make a ridiculously long poll, and since I wanted to write a bit about each one and I (honestly) don't remember the pre-FFVII games all that well, I thought I'd focus on what I like to call the "modern era" Final Fantasy games.

Other people have expressed their much appreciated opinions about the systems in II and VI, for example, and they've managed to do it without impugning my poll-making abilities

Oh, and the Sphere Grid only removes uniqueness if you really go out of your way to abuse it and tackle each party member's progression in completely illogical and unintended ways.

If you absolutely must have customization, I think the job system works best. It allows you to do whatever you want, but doesn't allow you to have a party of people that can all simultaneously do everything at once. You still need to decide which job a character is going to be in at any given time, and thus there is still some strategy.

Doesn't that really kill some of the suspension of disbelief and some of how closely you relate to the characters? I mean, I can fathom an awesome warrior, I can fathom an awesome mage -- I can even fathom some sort of amazing hybrid of the two, if that's how the character is initially presented. But to have them continually jump from one to the other makes them feel less like well-defined characters and more like little puppets to be manipulated and arranged as needed. To me, at least.

 

[ZephrC]

If you absolutely must have customization, I think the job system works best. It allows you to do whatever you want, but doesn't allow you to have a party of people that can all simultaneously do everything at once. You still need to decide which job a character is going to be in at any given time, and thus there is still some strategy.

Doesn't that really kill some of the suspension of disbelief and some of how closely you relate to the characters? I mean, I can fathom an awesome warrior, I can fathom an awesome mage -- I can even fathom some sort of amazing hybrid of the two, if that's how the character is initially presented. But to have them continually jump from one to the other makes them feel less like well-defined characters and more like little puppets to be manipulated and arranged as needed. To me, at least.

That's going to be a problem with any leveling system that really allows customization, isn't it? I did say that I only liked that one given that it had to have customization.

 

[Racthoh]

I always liked IX's system, just something about setting all sorts of passive abilities that really draws me into a game. Learning the skills was like Materia and Espers in a sense, but having to choose which skills you actually got to use felt more rewarding as it didn't feel like you were simply checking off items on a list. VII got out of hand for me; too much micromanagement and seeing the command window expand well beyond the traditional Fight/Magic/Special/Item was just silly. VIII was just ehh, X I refuse to acknowledge as a Final Fantasy (no white glove cursor = not a Final Fantasy), FFXII just seemed kinda pointless and if anything just ruined the potential fun of discovering what equipment would be found down the road, and FFXIII I'll never play so don't really care what it could offer to the series. II was pretty cool but life draining enemies would punish abusers swiftly. FFT, well that game was pretty much perfect to be honest, although 100 Brave + Blade Grasp with Reflect Mail on is pretty silly.

yeah something I tell people that love ff6 is that they should play hard type, it restricts esper usage only to terra and celes since they use magic...every one else cannot equip them thus no magic usage or level bonuses...it really increases the difficulty.

I think they call that a Natural Magic play through. Personally though I never found myself using magic too much outside of the Cure/Remedy categories outside of combat (since mashing Potions is rather tedious from the item menu). Autocrossbow/Drill from Edgar (eventually Atma Weapon + Offering), Wind Blade/Mantra/Bum Rush from Sabin, Locke just cause, and Strago for all his blue magic goodies. I just never found magic to be all that useful, even in the Tower of the Magi using Berserk was just so much more fun. The zenith of difficulty can probably be found in a CES run, utilizing only Celes, Edgar, and Setzer in the World of Ruin. A life without taking Mog through Kefka's Tower with the Moogle Charm on the instant I picked that little white sucker up is an experience I never want to have.

I'm sorry, but all the strategy in combat comes from dealing with your characters limited abilities. Making it so everyone can do everything removes all the challenge. And all those systems either allow everyone to do everything (VII, VIII, X, and XII) or are simple, unneeded micromanagement that adds nothing to the gameplay. (IX and XIII)

IV was just as abusive, probably even worse since you could do it faster. Parking Palom on Mount Ordeals solo until he learned Nuke meant Rosa would rejoin my party with Cure 4, or Rydia with Ice 3 which makes for an easy encounter with the remaining fiends as well as the rest of the game. Basically you level one character to an extreme and the rest join at that similar extreme because of how abilities are tied solely to level (Edge, Cecil, and Fusoya being the exceptions, poor Edge and his 790 starting HP pool :/).

 

[AC Medina]

If you absolutely must have customization, I think the job system works best. It allows you to do whatever you want, but doesn't allow you to have a party of people that can all simultaneously do everything at once. You still need to decide which job a character is going to be in at any given time, and thus there is still some strategy.

Doesn't that really kill some of the suspension of disbelief and some of how closely you relate to the characters? I mean, I can fathom an awesome warrior, I can fathom an awesome mage -- I can even fathom some sort of amazing hybrid of the two, if that's how the character is initially presented. But to have them continually jump from one to the other makes them feel less like well-defined characters and more like little puppets to be manipulated and arranged as needed. To me, at least.

That's going to be a problem with any leveling system that really allows customization, isn't it? I did say that I only liked that one given that it had to have customization.

That's the beauty of FFX, though. It gives the option of crazy customization for those who prefer it, but pretty much guides the rest of us to develop the characters' skills in a way that is consistent with their roles and personalities.

You completely left out the pre-7 games. You're pretty terrible at this. The best system is and will always be the Job system. There's a reason why Dragon Quest uses it so often, because it's effective and allows for characters to gain different skills without losing the uniqueness of each character that systems such as junction, the spheregrid and the materia system totally remove.

Like I stated in another post, I didn't want to make a ridiculously long poll, and since I wanted to write a bit about each one and I (honestly) don't remember the pre-FFVII games all that well, I thought I'd focus on what I like to call the "modern era" Final Fantasy games.

Other people have expressed their much appreciated opinions about the systems in II and VI, for example, and they've managed to do it without impugning my poll-making abilities

Oh, and the Sphere Grid only removes uniqueness if you really go out of your way to abuse it and tackle each party member's progression in completely illogical and unintended ways.

If you absolutely must have customization, I think the job system works best. It allows you to do whatever you want, but doesn't allow you to have a party of people that can all simultaneously do everything at once. You still need to decide which job a character is going to be in at any given time, and thus there is still some strategy.

Doesn't that really kill some of the suspension of disbelief and some of how closely you relate to the characters? I mean, I can fathom an awesome warrior, I can fathom an awesome mage -- I can even fathom some sort of amazing hybrid of the two, if that's how the character is initially presented. But to have them continually jump from one to the other makes them feel less like well-defined characters and more like little puppets to be manipulated and arranged as needed. To me, at least.

You've never actually played a game with a job system have you? But how does it make them seem less like characters then having everyone know all the same skills and do exactly the same things every turn and being carbon copies of one another?

I'll refrain from sarcastically wondering if you've played FFIX or X, but neither game has party members who "know all the same skills and do exactly the same things every turn and [are] carbon copies of one another." In fact, one of the lovely (if, perhaps, overly simplified) things about FFX's gameplay is just how specialized each party member is in. Tidus will hit the quick evasive creatures that Auron will never catch with his heavy sword-swings. Wakka can hit his blitzball at a Flan all day and not do half the damage Lulu can do with one spell. Why bother fighting little mechanical critters at all when Rikku can disable them in one shot?

Every character acquiring every skill only becomes a "problem" if you're grinding the hell out of the game far, far more than is needed to beat it for the sake of being a completionist and/or fighting superbosses. And, at that point, I don't think the "game experience" is really the player's concern.

 

[LeonLethality]

My favorite was the Magicite system, you could slightly alter stats and teach magic to your characters while they still all remained diverse and useful in their own ways instead of being completely interchangeable.

 

[Akihiko]

Sphere Grid probably. On one hand the license Board was too open, it did allow you to make any class you want, but often that meant the character became a jack of all trades, plus I think it makes a better character if they are more inclined to a specific class. Requiring licenses to use armour was also a pain, same with having to buy gambits. Crystarium on the other hand was a bit too closed off, you were forced to pick up abilities which you probably didn't want, and the side classes required a stupid amount of CP to learn. The sphere grid gave a nice balance, the international/expert grid, anyway. There was a main path for that specific character and then it branched off into other characters paths, which you could go off onto, if you so please. My only problem is could be troublesome to get back to the place where it does branch off into a specific characters path.

Reason why I dislike the Job system always was that each Job had seperate levels, and you couldn't use other classes abilities in battle. Consequently, if you got quite late on in the game, and decided, I need to have someone as that job, well then you have to start back at level 1 in terms of your job, and then go grind for it, to get abilities for that job, the character your grinding for, often being useless in battle until they learn some worth while abilities. Where as with the more recent systems, you can get spheres/crystals/licenses for a different class(or atleast abilities that would be designated to that class, if there was a class) while battling in another class. Not to mention, with the job class, you don't really have the ability to use other classes ability in battle, unless you set yourself as that other class, unlike the later ones, where you can. Although admittedly in XIII, you still have to swap class, you are just able to in the middle of battle.

Oh, and by the way, for the most case in X(Once you start going down other characters paths, that does change, though, true), and all through XIII(Each of their Crystarium paths for classes are all unique, so although all characters can learn all classes, some characters will never be any good at certain roles), characters still retain their uniqueness. In X, Auron will always be the big hitter, like Fang is in XIII. Lulu and Yuna will always be the magic users, just like Hope and Vanille were in XIII.

 

[NeutralDrow]

All this discussion is doing is making me want to play all these games. At the same time. I was going to eventually (I've actually owned FFX for a while, but I got distracted by Tales of the Abyss and Kingdom Hearts), but it's reaching "ache" levels.

Yeah, I may not be a nerd for overleveling or metagame concerns, but I loves me my varying game systems.

On topic...the only ones I've played with were the Esper system (which I used and loved) and Tactics' Job system (which I never really got used to...though I managed just fine in Disgaea, if that makes sense at all).

 

[AC Medina]

Honestly, unless you're running from every encounter it's ridiculously easy to complete the initial sphere grids pretty fast which means you can then turn Auron into your caster, make Tidus into the white mage and then make Lulu into the Heavy Hitter while Wakka becomes a thief, the only thing you can't do is give anyone else the ability to summon which is a shame because Yuna is probably the worst character in that game. And correct me if I'm wrong, really do, but don't you no ap for stealing the robots to death with rikku?

Actually, I choose to believe that Lulu expands her knowledge of the mystic arts by learning white magic, Tidus begins to emulate Auron, who basically serves as his mentor, and the always playful Rikku, who has grown closer to Wakka after he embraces her Al Bhed heritage, picks up a few of his blitzball-inspired tricks.

But I make up insane rationalizations for every decision I make in an RPG, so don't mind me.

 

[iFail69]

my favorite is the sphere grid, it was completely customisable and even though all characters become a jack of all trades in the end game, FFX makes up for it with monsters like penance

 

[foodmaniac]

I actually liked the Crystarium for the most part. Sure it was linear, but I liked how for the most part of the game, everyone was useful one way or another, and no two characters could do exactly the same thing.

I voted for the Sphere Grid though. While being fully customisable, there are still balanced, pre-defined roles for each character, excluding Kimahri obviously. For the main game, all the characters can only have one role anyway, since you don't get enough SP to run around switching roles.

I did like FFIV though. Keeping characters defined into specific roles makes you think strategically in how you stay alive and deal with bosses. The only problem with the game is that you can't change any of your characters out (with the GBA remake you can, but not until the last dungeon), so trying to deal with intergrating a new character into your strategy is always tough.

 

[ZephrC]

If you absolutely must have customization, I think the job system works best. It allows you to do whatever you want, but doesn't allow you to have a party of people that can all simultaneously do everything at once. You still need to decide which job a character is going to be in at any given time, and thus there is still some strategy.

Doesn't that really kill some of the suspension of disbelief and some of how closely you relate to the characters? I mean, I can fathom an awesome warrior, I can fathom an awesome mage -- I can even fathom some sort of amazing hybrid of the two, if that's how the character is initially presented. But to have them continually jump from one to the other makes them feel less like well-defined characters and more like little puppets to be manipulated and arranged as needed. To me, at least.

That's going to be a problem with any leveling system that really allows customization, isn't it? I did say that I only liked that one given that it had to have customization.

That's the beauty of FFX, though. It gives the option of crazy customization for those who prefer it, but pretty much guides the rest of us to develop the characters' skills in a way that is consistent with their roles and personalities.

Well, the sphere grid just turns from one option to the other. There's no point in trying to switch tracks early, because it requires a bunch of backtracking or higher level unlock spheres, and backtracking wastes a lot of experience meaning all the other characters will be better than one that switches, and the higher level unlock spheres are a pain to get before the game opens up to the point where everyone can simply be everything, and only provide limited options anyway.

The sphere grid wasn't really bad. I would even agree it was one of the better systems from the modern games. It just never really struck me as being good either. It was functional, and if you didn't grind for experience the characters still had a bit of identity by the end of the story, but if you played past that they all just degenerated into a bunch of super characters, and before that there was no real need for all the micromanagement.

 

[CmdrGoob]

Materia is the best, and all the rest aren't that good. Materia allows for an interesting range of options and Materia itself is explained by the story of the world so it doesn't seem abstract. Sphere grid is OK, but not that great. There's some choice, mostly it's just timewasting busy work making you manually fill in linear paths with only a few branch points, especially before the end game, which makes it often just a tedious chore. It's also stupidly abstract and arbitrary and therefore unimmersive - I mean what the hell is it? Junctioning is by far the worst, though. Horribly grindy and arbitrary.